This gentleman, whose great learning and his
zealous labours for the benefit of the native population of India during half a
century have often been acknowledged, died some days ago at his residence in
London nearly eighty-three years of age.

Mr. John Clark Marshman was the son οf Dr.
Marshman, a well-known Baptist Missionary at Serampore, in Bengal. He was
educated there, and was very early introduced to the business management of
religious missionary agencies in India: but soon turned his attention to secular
works of social improvement in that country, and became an active journalist.
He established the first newspaper in the Bengalee language, and the Friend
of India, which was the first English weekly paper in India. He compiled a
history of Bengal, and at a later period wrote the history of British India. He
was also the author οf a series of useful law-books for the Indian public. He
held, during ten years, the laborious post of official translator, but spent the
whole οf its salary, with £30,000 οf his private fortune, or the profits of his
literary and business undertakings, in building and maintaining a College for
the higher education οf the natives. In 1852 he came home to live in England,
but continued his researches, and produced several historical and biographical
works οf standard value. He was a candidate for a seat in Parliament at several
elections, but did not succeed in that object. The affairs οf the East India
Railway Company still afforded him useful occupation. The order of the Star οf
India was conferred upon Mr. Marshman by Lord Lawrence as a recognition of his
service to our Eastern Empire.

Click here for the 1893 Dictionary of National Biography entry for
John Clark Marshman.

John Clark Marshman―born
in Bristol, England, and son of Joshua and Hannah Marshman―managed
many activities at the Serampore Mission and the Serampore Press for many years,
before and especially after the death of
Rev. William Ward
in 1823. Evidence of Marshman's management of the Press appears below in a
receipt he gave to the Sheriff of Calcutta for the Sheriff's purchase of
advertising space in the Bengali newspaper Sumachar Durpun [Mirror of
News] (est. May 31, 1818), "the first newspaper ever printed in any oriental
language" (John Clark
Marshman, The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward: Embracing the the
History of the Serampore Mission, London, 1859,
vol. 2, p. 163).
John Clark
Marshman served as the editor of the newspaper, and as the document below
indicates, his public title was "Superintendent of the Press." The profits
of the Press were reinvested in the Serampore Mission and
Serampore College
(est. 1818).